Eighteen
by buriedhope
Summary: Some people want to forget the past. But why won’t Dani’s go away?
1. Prolouge

I obviously don't own McFly...and I don't know them either. If I did I would be freaking out right now. Now, on with the story! (and summary...)

**Until her friend invites her to England for six months, Dani Johnson has not been able to forget her brother's death. Nearly a year has already passed, and it still haunts her. But maybe a fresh start in a new country will help her. After all, British guys are hot. Especially when they're in a band.**

"Fifteen minutes in America and I'm dying to go back to England," I said, setting my bags down next to the couch.  
Home wasn't much different than when I left it six months ago. There were little changes around the house, such as a new dining table, which my mother said was, "nearly an antique."

I sighed and flopped down onto the couch. "Home sweet home," I said. That's when Rachel noticed the ring on my left hand.

"Wow, you go away to England for six months, and come home with a new hair color, a whole new wardrobe, and a fiancée? Tell me everything."

I grinned and began to tell her my story.


	2. Chapter 1

"Want to go to England with me?" Those were the first words out of my best friend's mouth as soon as I picked her up from work At twenty-two, Heather Johnson was full of spirit, confidence, and a longing to live in another country. The fact that we happened to have the same last name was purely coincidence.

"My boss just told me that they opened another branch in London, and they need an assistant manager," she said without waiting for me to answer.

Heather worked at a swanky department store in the middle of town. They'd been thinking about opening stores in other countries for ages, but I never thought they'd actually do it. Neither did Heather.

"…It's only six months, but that's definitely long enough, right?" Heather was saying.

I blinked and nodded my head, unsure of what she was saying. "Sure."

Heather grinned. "Cool. So are you going to come?"

I sighed. "I don't know, Heather. I mean, I really want to, but I already filled out the application forms for different colleges, and none of them are anywhere near London," I said, somewhat sarcastic. I didn't tell her that none of them were even in a different state, let alone England.

She failed to see through my sarcasm. "Oh, come on, Dani. This would make those forms look even better," she said. "If you live in England for six months, you'll probably get into better colleges."

"Gee, thanks."

She laughed. "No problem. But I'm serious. Lots of people take a year off after high school."

I sighed. I was graduating in less than two weeks. When she graduated, Heather had somehow managed to skip college and get a great job. I, on the other hand, never had as much luck as her, and couldn't afford to take the risk of not going to college. "Well, maybe," I said. "Can I think about it?"

Heather gave in reluctantly. "Fine. But hurry up. Because I have to be there by June twenty-fifth."

**18**

The pregnancy test read positive. I couldn't believe it. How could this have happened to me? I was so stupid.

Andrew appeared out of nowhere. "How could you, Dani?" he said to me. The disappointed look on his face broke my heart.

"Drew…" When did I start calling him Drew? He disappeared before I could say anything else.

**18**

I woke up screaming. Glancing around the room, I saw that I was in bed. The clock read 4:59 AM. "It was just a dream," I told myself. The dream had me confused. Why was I dreaming about being pregnant? And why would my brother be disappointed in me? In fact, two months before his death, he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant. She'd put the baby up for adoption.

I sighed and got out of bed. There was no way I was getting back to sleep. Andrew invaded my dreams at least every other night. It was always different.

I knew one thing. If I were going to forget Andrew, I'd need a change of scenery.

Time to call Heather and let her know she'd have some company in England.

**18**

We left on June 22nd. When Heather told me we'd be home four days before Christmas, I almost said no. I'd miss all the decorating, and pie making, and all the Christmassy things you do in December. But this was probably the only chance I'd ever have to go to England, and I had to take it. The sooner I forgot Andrew, the sooner I could get on with my life.

I spent most of the plane ride sleeping or listening to music. When we were told to buckle our seat belts, Heather and I started getting excited about finally arriving in London. We got in at four AM, but because of the time difference between the US and England, we were wide-awake.

Not that there was much to see. It was pretty dark, after all. As soon as we got to our hotel, we tried to go to sleep. Heather fell asleep pretty quickly, but I had trouble. There were so many things I could hardly wait to do, mainly going shopping. I finally fell asleep an hour later.


	3. Chapter 2

I was woken up by an earthquake. Or at least that's what I thought it was. It turned out to be Heather jumping up and down on my bed. "Dani!" she squealed. "Wake up! We're in London!"

I groaned and rolled over to look at the clock, which read 9:58 AM. I could hardly run on eight hours of sleep, let alone just five. But the excitement of being in England soon took over. I was up, showered, dressed and ready to go before anyone could say, "let's go."

We got breakfast in a small diner on one of the main streets. Over breakfast burritos and something I couldn't pronounce, we discussed what we wanted to do for the day.

"Ooh! Remember that band I was telling you about at home a couple weeks ago?" Heather asked me.

"Uh…no?"

"Oh. Well, they're playing at this place tomorrow."

"Sounds like a great place," I teased.

Heather rolled her eyes. "I don't know what the place is called."

There was about two minutes of silence before she spoke again. "Ooh! Let's make a bet!" she squealed.

I rolled my eyes. "Heather, I am not sleeping with some British guy and breaking his heart when he finds out it's a bet. In real life, it doesn't always turn out good." I shook my head, trying to forget about the dream I'd had.

She rolled her eyes back at me. "This bet doesn't involve sex. In fact, it's not really even a bet. I was just going to suggest we speak…English." She giggled.

"If we're not speaking English right now, then what _are_ we speaking?"

"You know what I mean. British English. Whatever you call it. Maybe we can trick some people into thinking we're not tourists."

Her idea actually sounded like fun. I knew I couldn't pull off a British accent if my life depended on it, but you never know. "Are we actually making a bet, or is this just something we're doing for fun?"

She grinned. "We could make it interesting and bet on it, but we'd probably end up meeting some hot guys, and then they'd be mad when they found out we lied and we're really American. So let's not."

"You just hate to lose."

"You got it, sister. Can we get back to talking about McFly now?"

I looked at her, confused. "What's a McFly?"

She looked like she wanted to slap me. "How could you not know who McFly is? They're only the hottest band in New Yo…London. You know that band from Just My Luck?"

I suddenly remembered. "Oh, that band? I remember now. The lead singers are pretty hot. But you watch that film way too much."

"See, you're already talking like a British person!" She got a blank stare from me. "You said film instead of movie." This time she received an eye roll and a shrug.

"I guess I catch on quickly. Whatever. Now, what about them?" I took a bite of my food.

Heather finished off her glass of water. "Right. Well, do you want to go see them?"

I shrugged. "Not if they're not any good, I don't."

She grinned and handed me her iPod. Make that one of her iPods. Yes, she has two. One of them she dedicated to one person's music, though I'm not sure who.

As soon as I put the headphones in my ear I found out. Something that sounded like a cross between the Beach Boys and Blink 182 blasted through my ears. I kind of liked it, but I wasn't about to let Heather know that. I loved giving her a hard time.

"You dedicated your iPod to this crap?" I teased. Not that she took it that way.

"They are not crap! And yes, I dedicated my iPod to them. See how little you know about me? You don't even know my favorite type of music." She put on a fake pout.

"Oh please, we share the last name. We're practically sisters. I know more about you than I know about myself. And by the way," I said, eating the last bite of my burrito, "I happen to like this band called McFly."

You know those little smiley faces that have their tongues sticking out that you see on an instant messenger?

Yeah, well, if this were an IM conversation, I would've put one right after that.


	4. Chapter 3

Too bad it wasn't an IM conversation. Because literally ten seconds after I told Heather I liked this band, the hottest guy I had ever seen walked into the diner.

The guy was blonde, around six feet tall, and had an adorable grin on his face. He looked slightly familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen him. My face fell when I saw that his grin was aimed at a dark haired girl behind the counter. Of course he had a girlfriend.

He and the girl exchanged a kiss, which I'm sure would've lasted longer had the girl's boss (or someone) not yelled at her for mingling.

I watched them talk for a minute, but the guy just ordered a drink and left.

Heather caught me staring and turned around. "Holy crap!" she shrieked, loud enough to get a few glances from people. I shushed her.

"What?" I said, annoyed.

"Do you know who that is?" She said in a (slightly) quieter voice.

I shrugged.

"That's Tom Fletcher!"

"Um, so?"

She sighed, obviously frustrated, and obviously trying not to slap me. "Tom Fletcher is one of the guys in McFly!"

My eyes popped wide open. I'd seen him in Just My Luck. He was the cute one with longish blonde hair. Though it wasn't long anymore. He'd cut it short, almost short enough to be spiked.

"Are you serious? This is freaking cool!" I knew I was a bit too enthusiastic. Hanging around Heather does that to you.

Heather nodded, grinning. "Yup. Now, let's go run after him."

I realized she was serious when she stood up. I stopped her from walking right out the door. "Heather, you do realize he has a girlfriend, right?"

Her face fell. "Oh, yeah. I remember reading something about that."

I pointed to the girl at the counter. "And that's her." I dropped my hand just as the girl looked our direction.

"Well, can we at least go see if he's still around? Maybe we can get an autograph so we can brag when we get home."


	5. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own McFly, yadda yadda yadda.**

I know the last chapter was short. But in my defense, they look longer on Microsoft Word. Okay, that's no excuse. But this one's longer (I think...). I live in the US, not England, so if something seems a bit off...just tell me, and I'll try to fix it, or do better in the future, or whatever. Okay, on with the chapter!

* * *

The moment Heather let me listen to her iPod was the moment I became obsessed with McFly. Okay, and when I realized how hot their lead singer (or one of them, anyway) was.

"Why did you dedicate your iPod to them, anyway? I mean, they only have so many songs, right? Why not put other people on there?" I asked.

Heather scoffed. "Because, they're writing new songs to this day. And I do have other people on there."

"Who?"

"Son of Dork."

I rolled my eyes. "Because I know who that is," I said sarcastically.

"Sorry. Their lead singer, James Bourne, used to be in Busted." She explained.

"Oh yeah. I kind of remember them." I started singing Year 3000.

"Anyway," Heather interrupted my singing, "Busted helped get McFly started. Or something like that. I think McFly went on tour with them."

"Oh. So do you have Busted on this iPod?"

She sighed sadly. "I keep forgetting to look for them." We paid and left. "Oh hey, you know what we should do?" she asked as we started walking down the street, having no clue where we were going.

"What?" I said.

She grinned mischievously. "We should get tattoos."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, for one thing, I already have two. And for another thing, no."

She sighed dramatically. "But Dani…" she whined.

I glared at her. "I don't want three tattoos."

She pouted. "Fine. We'll be your typical boring American tourists." Her mood suddenly changed. "But we won't be tourists for long! We should go apartment shopping!" she exclaimed.

I rolled my eyes. "They're called flats here. I thought we weren't supposed to be talking like Americans?"

"Oh, right." She put on a British accent. "Well then, darling, shall we go flat shopping?"

I giggled and put on an accent of my own. "Yes, we can't live in that bloody hotel forever!" We kept talking like that and giggling…well, madly.

I was shocked when a fellow tourist came up to us and asked how to get to an address she had on a piece of paper. I looked at her in surprise. "Oh, sorry…we're not…we're not from the UK. Actually we're from America."

The lady gave us a weird look and walked away. When she was out of earshot, Heather and I burst out laughing. We started walking again, not exactly laughing, but giggling every time we looked at each other. We soon got distracted from looking for an apartment when we spotted a mall.

We soon had our hands full with bags full of clothes, shoes, the occasional accessory, and more clothes. "Oooh!" Heather stopped walking suddenly, causing me to nearly run into her.

"What?" I gave her an irritated look.

She grinned and pointed to a music store. "I can get Busted's CDs," she said, walking away from me. I sighed and followed her.

"What is so great about this band anyway?" I asked, browsing through the pop section, seeing hundreds of artists I didn't recognize.

Heather looked at me oddly. "You've heard them before. Don't you remember how awesome they were?" I shrugged. "Well, I just really like them. Even though the broke up." She pretended to wipe away a tear, which caused me to giggle, and we received a dirty look from the cashier.

When Heather finally found the two Busted albums she was looking for, she paid and we left, finally going home to our hotel.

"I am exhausted," Heather said, dumping her bags on the floor and throwing herself onto her bed. I laughed and followed suit.

Heather was soon up and digging taking her new CDs out. I groaned. "Do we _have_ to listen to them?" I complained.

She rolled her eyes and put the CD in the stereo she'd happened to bring to England. "Of course. You will love Matt's voice."

She was right. I did love Matt's voice. And Charlie's, and James's. "Alright, I have to admit, they're awesome, Johnson," I told her.

"See, Johnson? I told you." She smirked.

I rolled my eyes and got up to get ready for bed.


End file.
